1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a sheet feeding mechanism that is applied particularly to a recording apparatus and conveys, among a plurality of sheets supported by a sheet supporter in a stacked manner, the endmost sheet in the stacking direction.
2. Description of Related Art
A recording apparatus such as printers and facsimiles records an image on a sheet, etc., by means of its image recording head. In order to record images on a plurality of sheets in sequence, such a recording apparatus generally includes a sheet feeding mechanism that sequentially conveys, among a plurality of sheets supported by a sheet supporter in a stacked manner, the endmost sheet in the stacking direction toward the image recording head.
According to one of known sheet feeding mechanisms, a needle is stuck into an uppermost sheet supported by a sheet supporter, and in this condition the sheet is transferred to a skew correction unit (see Japanese Patent Unexamined Publication No. 2003-40467). After a skew of the sheet is corrected at the skew correction unit, the sheet is sent out toward a head. The skew correction unit includes a skew roller and a guide wall. The skew roller is slightly inclined against the direction perpendicular to a predetermined conveyance direction of the sheet. The guide wall extends in the predetermined conveyance direction. The skew roller conveys a sheet to the guide wall obliquely relative to the predetermined conveyance direction, and then one side of the sheet is laid along the guide wall, thereby implementing a skew correction. The sheet, having its skew corrected in this way at the skew correction unit, is subsequently conveyed along the predetermined conveyance direction, during which an image is recorded onto the sheet.
However, an application of the above-described sheet feeding mechanism to a recording apparatus can disadvantageously result in a size increase of the apparatus. This is because the apparatus should be provided with, in addition to the sheet feeding mechanism, the skew correction unit that includes a sheet conveyance path required for a skew correction. The path has an enough length to convey the sheet with the skew roller so that one side of the sheet is entirely laid along the guide wall).